Group Cohesion: Types and Development

Group Cohesion

• Group cohesion constitutes the integrity, solidarity, and unity of a group
• As a principle of equifinality, cohesion stems from attraction relations, task relations, identity, emotions, and structure
• Social cohesion is based on attraction among members to the group
• Task cohesion refers to a shared commitment among members to achieve a goal
• Collective cohesion constitutes unity based on shared identity and belonging
• Emotional cohesion refers to affective intensity within the group and includes emotions such as pride
• Structural cohesion is based on the structural integrity of a group, including clarity of roles and strength of relationships
• Measuring cohesion requires multimethod procedures, as it's a multicomponent and multilevel process

Development of Cohesion Over Time

• Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model of Group Development identifies five stages of group development
• The Orientation (Forming) stage involves members familiarizing themselves, addressing dependency and inclusion, and accepting the leader
• The Conflict (Storming) stage involves disagreement over procedures, expression of dissatisfaction, and antagonism toward the leader
• The Structure (Norming) stage involves growth of cohesiveness and unity, establishing roles/standards, and increased trust
• The Performance (Performing) stage involves goal achievement, high task orientation, and emphasis on production
• The Dissolution (Adjourning) stage involves termination of roles, completion of tasks, and reduction of dependence
• The Punctuated Equilibrium Model suggests groups move through periods of accelerated change
• Online groups might face instability due to membership instability

Consequences of Cohesion

• Cohesion increases member satisfaction and decreases turnover and stress
• Cohesion intensifies group processes
• Cohesion and performance are linked; success boosts cohesion and cohesive groups perform better

Initiations and Cohesion

• Many groups implement methods to increase cohesion
• Initiations create dissonance, which new members resolve by increasing their commitment
• Hazing is a severe initiation exposing new members to psychological and physical risk

Group Structure

• Group structure involves arrangement/organization of members, interrelations, and interactions
• Important elements of group structure are norms, roles, and network of relationships

Group Norms

• Norms are implicit, self-generating, and stable standards for group behavior
• Prescriptive norms set the standard for expected group behavior
• Proscriptive norms identify behaviors that should not be performed
• Descriptive norms define what most people do, feel, and think in a group
• Injunctive norms differentiate between desirable and undesirable actions
• Norms are shared and internalized standards
• Violating a norm can cause discomfort
• Norms transmit between members, with children being influenced by age three
• Norms influence human behaviors

Roles in Groups

• Roles specify the types of behavior expected of individuals, leading to role differentiation
• Roles can be categorized as task roles or relationship roles
• Individuals rarely hold both task and relationship roles in a group
• Functional Theory states that there are 27 roles in discussion groups
• Interactionist Role Theories analyze Impression Management
• Moxnes made a theory based on Freud`s Psychodynamic theory to identify roles, such as "mother" and "father" roles
• SYMLOG (Systemic Multiple Level Organization of Groups) 1970 can also identify roles within groups
• Group socialization describes a member's transition through roles, from prospective to former members
• Role differentiation and socialization processes can create stress for group members
• Role ambiguity occurs when behavior associated with roles are poorly defined
• Interrole conflict occurs when group members occupy multiple roles with incompatible behaviors
• Intrarole conflict occurs when the demands of a single role are contradictory
• Role fit is low when members do not feel they match the demands of their roles

Social Network

• Groups develop a stable pattern of variations in authority and power through a status differentiation process
• Groups develop patterns of attraction through sociometric differentiations.
• Balance Theory assumes sociometric structures tend to reach equilibrium when likes and dislikes are balanced
• Group communication networks parallel formal paths, but include informal networks
• Being in a central position in communication networks is more influential
• Information generally flows downward
• Social Network Analysis (SNA) is useful in identifying unnoticed aspects of group structure
• The Individual Level (Egocentric) includes degree centrality, indegree, outdegree, betweenness and closeness
• The Group Level (Sociocentric) includes size, density, cliques and holes

Limits of Authority Power

• Social power is a group-level process that predicts differences in members’ capacity to influence
• Milgram tested obedience in 1974 by ordering participants to give electric shocks to a confederate
• 65% of participants fully obeyed, continuing even when the learner retracted consent
• Obedience varied based on the setting's harm, research location, and legitimacy
• Obedience is common in hierarchically organized groups, such as military or educational settings
• Despite criticisms, Milgram's findings have been replicated

Sources of Power in Groups

• French and Raven's Theory of Power Bases emphasizes sources of power
• Reward Power: control over distribution of rewards
• Coercive Power: ability to punish or threaten
• Legitimate Power: socially sanctioned claim to a position that includes right to demand compliance
• Referent Power: derived from social relationships, attraction, or respect
• Expert Power: belief individual possesses superior knowledge
• Informational Power: potential use of informational resources like rational argument
• Agentic state: obedient individuals believe themselves agents of authority with reduced autonomy
• Weber’s concept of charisma suggests leaders exert influence by legitimate and referent power
• Blass confirmed Milgram’s experimenter derived power from all six bases
• Power tactics are methods to influence others
• Hard tactics are more coercive, limiting freedom to comply
• Soft tactics exploit the relationship to extract compliance
• Direct, rational tactics emphasize reasoning and logic
• Indirect, nonrational tactics rely on emotionality and misinformation
• Bilateral tactics include persuasion
• Unilateral tactics do not need cooperation
• The foot-in-the-door technique uses minor requests to preface major ones
• Brainwashing methods rely on influence tactics, including behavioral commitment

Sources of Status in Groups

• Status structure defines differences in power or influence in a group
• Expectation-states theory argues status is allocated based on specific and diffuse characteristics
• Status generalization occurs when irrelevant characteristics influence allocation of prestige
• Status differences in groups may be an evolved adaption

Transformative Effect of Power

• Disposition for personal power varies, but situations also prime it
• Keltner’s approach/inhibition theory suggests power activates the approach response, while loss of power inhibits actions
• Positive effects of power: Increased activity, positive emotions, consistent goal-striving, executive functioning, and authenticity
• Negative effects of power include: increased risky behavior and negative impact on emotional states, loss of perspective taking, misjudging others and increased self-satisfaction
• Bathsheba Syndrome occurs when authorities use their power exploit others

Reaction of Those Without Power

• Approach/inhibition theory predicts powerless individuals display negative emotions and reduced motivation
• Coercive methods are linked to dysfunctional group processes, increasing conflict
• Kelman’s Compliance-identification-internalization model defines acceptance of authority
• Milgram's theory of the agentic state traces obedience to the authority-subordinate relationship
• The fundamental distribution error (FAE)may underestimate group led process

Leadership Defined

• Leadership is an influence process where group members guide others in pursuing goals
• Leaders influence both directly and indirectly and leaders and followers collaborate
• Groups prosper with good leaders, but exaggerating influence is the romance of leader fallacy
• The Two-factor model of leadership identifies 2sets or clusters of leadership behaviors
• The Task leader is focused on the work and goals of the group
• The Relationship leader focuses on the interpersonal relations within the groups
• Leadership substitutes theory describes factors that substitute for task/relationship leadership
• Men tend to be agentic while women are more communal, but the sex difference isn't steadfast

Emergence of Leaders

• Paralleling Carlyle’s and Tolstoy’s theories, early leadership emergence analyses adopted trait/situational models
• An interactional approach examines reciprocal relationships among leaders, followers, situations
• Longitudinal designs provide evidence of personality's influence
• Trait clusters in the five-factor model and the dark triad correlate with leadership emergence and effectiveness
• Leaders tend to be intelligent with superior mental ability
• Emotional intelligence relates to leadership emergence and effectiveness
• Sternberg’s systems model stresses practical and creative intelligence
• Emergent leaders are more experienced
• The "babble effect" suggests speaking frequently in groups boosts the chance of becoming a leader
• Quality of ideas is more effective than sheer quantity
• Leaders tend to be older, taller, and healthier than average group members
• Women and ethnic minorities are less likely to be selected as leaders
• “Glass ceiling” and “leadership labyrinth” suggest gender bias in leadership
• The bias against women is ironic as they possess skills for success

Dynamics of Leading and Following

• Implicit Leadership Theories influence perceptions and reactions to leaders
• GLOBE studies show common elements for worldwide ILTs: Diplomatic, Moral Integrity, charismatic
• Social Identity Theory predicts leader endorsement depends on leader prototypically and social identity
• Social Role Theory links stereotypes to negative expectations for women leaders
• Terror Management Theory suggests a deep-seated need for leaders during crises
• Evolutionary Theory says leadership improves fitness of both leaders and followers
• Mismatch Hypothesis says people favor a leader based on instinct
• Leadership is a cooperative process according to Chagnon's studies

Factors of Leader Effectiveness

• Leadership style theories link effectiveness to task/relationship behaviors
• The Leadership Grid assumes concern and people are both high and results in the best leaders
• Situational Leadership Theory matches leadership to the group's developmental stage
• Contingency Theory notes leadership effectiveness, leaders’ style, and the situation
• Leader’s Motivational Style can be either task or relationship-motivated
• The leader-member relations and the leader’s power must be factored in
• Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX) focuses on the leader’s dyadic relationship with each member
• Groups with inner-group members are productive and have better relationships
• Participation theories suggest distributed leadership to the entire group
• Shared leadership models encourage member-centered leadership

Styles of Followership

• Kelley’s theory suggests followers vary along dimensions: active/passive and independent/dependent
• Conformists, passive, pragmatic, alienated, and exemplary followers exist
• Transformational theories examine how charismatic leaders promote change
• Burns distinguished between transactional leaders and transformational leaders
• Bass identified four components of transformational leadership: Idealized influence (or charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration measure by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire
• Women tend to adopt participative and transformational styles while men are autocratic
• Women’s skills may suit future organizations because of being less hierarchical

How Social Presence Impacts Perfomance

• Triplett’s study demonstrated people’s performance improves with the presence of others
• Social facilitation occurs for a range of tasks
• Zajonc concluded social facilitation requires dominant responses, while complex tasks risk interference

Theories and Explanations for Social Facilitation

• Drive Processes: Presence of others elevate drive levels, facilitating simple tasks
• Physiological Processes: Higher arousal and social attentiveness facilitate performance
• Motivational Processes: Associates presence to learn and facilitate tasks
• Cognitive Processes: Attentional conflict increases motivation, but facilitates only simple tasks
• Personality Processes: Individuals who display positively when interpersonal situations are more effective
• Blascovich’s studies confirmed threat responses during tasks
• Cottrell’s evaluation apprehension theory proposes people feel the need to be evaluated
• Distraction conflict theory increases motivation
• Harkins’ mere effort model traces effects to changes in processing information
• Social Orientation Theory suggests a positive interpersonal orientation with low anxiety displays social facilitation effects
• Social facilitation relates to relational processes, eating, electronic monitoring, and learning

Factors that Impact Group Productivity

• Ringelmann effect states that groups become less productive as they increase in size due to coordination losses
• Coordination losses and social loafing reduce individual effort when working in a group
• Factors influencing social loafing are identifiability, free riding, goals, involvement and identity

Models That Promote Individual Effort

• Collective effort Model that draws on expectancy-value theories of motivation to provide theoretical framwork

Conditions Where Groups Outperform Indivduals

• Few groups reach their potential because negative group processes limit performance
• (Steiner) Actual productivity = potential productivity minus process loss
• Task demands are defined by divisibility, type of output, and social combination
• Groups outperform individuals on additive and compensatory tasks
• "Wisdom-of-the-crowd" states individual judgments, when averaged, accurate
• Groups perform well on disjunctive tasks if there is at least one individual with the correct solution
• Eureka problems holds for groups, while truth-supported-wins holds for non-Eureka problems
• Groups are effective when dealing with problems that have known solutions rather than problems that are unclear
• When the task is conjunctive must be matched with abilities.
• The Kohler effect finds that members can increase their productivity due to competitive advantages
• Discretionary tasks coincide in working with individual inputs
• Groups perform better on many kind of tasks, but only when process losses are minimized
• Synergy manifests from group achievements that any member could not have accomplished working alone
• Weak synergy: group’s performance is superior to typical member
• Strong synergy: group outperforms its best member
• The goal of brainstorming groups is to discover creative problem solutions

Brainstorm Rules

• Encourage flow of ideas among members: expressive, evaluate, quantity, and ideas"
• Brainstorming groups lack generation linking performance with social loafing
• Brainwriting, synectics, NGT, Delphi, and EBS are other effective methods

The ODDI Process

• Discusses how the decision operations in the group is completed
  • Orientations will clarify procedure
    • Orientation improves time managment
  • Discussion stages will retrieve memory
    • Exchange and collect information
  • Decisions the collective decision
  • Implement will carry out decisions based on group impact

Collective Decision Models

• Common schemes that use collective decision models:
  • Averaging statistically
    • Decisions with different pluralities
      • Unanimous agreements with common consensus
  • Delegating with decision making methods on collective groups impact A decision will determined if it is just from procedural just beliefs

Problems that Intervene in Group Decisions

• Group polarization undermines the ability to make just decisions
  • Information bias with group errors that lack trust
    • Judgement errors that overlooked with unimportant information with exaggeration
    • More common in groups with more common shared bias that are more shared

Why do Group Make Risker Decisions than Individuals

 - Choices will shift with a extreme risk effect that will generate a questionnaire to identify risky shifts
      - Evaluated opinions with Social comparison theory that stated that innate will drive to evaluate with more opinions
      -  More persuasive when there is more caution of the pros and cons
           - Groupthin creates more solidarity due to disputes
                - Symptoms can impact group over estimation

Group Problems and Cures

• The members of that all feel that all members are in agreeance or lack of privacy
  • Abilene paradox to have the misinformation due to private opinions discrepant with the rest of ther groups opinions
  • Collective decision making in group think cases
    • Set group cohesives factors that can cause it
      • Overcome with group structures that will lead less isolations

How All can be Prevented

 - With situational factors in stress cases that propose alternative methods
      - Group can lead to closure based on members that are more likely to make poorer choices based of  Kriklanski's theory

• Bargon suggested that groups can show group think with negatives but with a shared identity due to restrictive norms but they do not require coherence

Qualitives of Quality Team Work

• Teams are group of member working together based on a shared goal
• Effectiveness will occur coordinated group of effective efforts

What do teams need?

- According to concept teams need work and efforts that are complex.but overall is is needed with overall effectiveness

 - IPO model systems models that will guide that guides models of teams

Methods -WorkTeam -Management -Advisory -Mangers - Authority matrix model

Influences to Group Effectiveness

• Pisano will review efficiency with more effective methods in group
• Personality trails will link groups with agreeableness A group will fit the team with individual skills

Team Effectiness skills

        - The orientation team will be with abilities skills and abilities
              - Team skills increase team resources based on cohesion if they have low team cohesion
                        - They need to be organized to succeed in groups to prevent disadvantages due to disorganization based on Woods analysis
        - Women effectiveness

To Promote Relationship Outcommes

  - Need Interdependence that will benefit team work
        - The team can improve the development systems within the group
        - Group can can use a cordnated interactions to sustan

• They need to show that their is well balanced cordnated activities
• Need team models with a challenge and task with the skill(Hackman2002)
  • Effective groups are structure and norms within relations
• Team can improve with increase effective with satisfaction with members